Valve Complete Pack

Valve did a sneaky, small-but-significant thing recently: it expanded its "Top Sellers" list on Steam to include one hundred games. The sales leaderboard doesn't tell us exactly how many copies a game sold, but it gives us a vague idea of how well certain games are doing on Steam in a given moment.

It's an inherently misleading metric—take that as a disclaimer. Still, as we sit in the shadow of some of 2012's biggest releases, I'd like to take a crack at gleaning what we can from this moment in time.

2K's having a great end of the year.The $50 pre-sale of XCOM is outselling everything but Borderlands 2 on Steam. We might be able to chalk that up to fairly generous pre-purchase incentives (which could include a free copy of Civ 5 if enough people pre-buy it). It might be mild evidence that demos still work, too. Borderlands 2's high concurrent user count over the past few days (reaching 123,758 last weekend) is also evidence that 2K will win the weeks connecting September and October on Steam.

Digital pre-orders are a thing.XCOM isn't the only thing-you-can-buy-but-can't-play-yet doing well. Joining the unreleased are Dishonored at #7, War of the Roses at #12, Football Manager 2013 at #17, Company of Heroes 2 at #29, and Hitman Absolution at #51. Even though there's no chance of a game going out of stock, Steam users don't seem to mind putting money down in advance, especially if they're rewarded with bonus content or a small discount for doing so.

Where are the MMOs? Oh, right.Zero MMOs appear in today's top 100. I might consider that unsurprising—we wouldn't expect too many people to be picking up competitors while Guild Wars 2 and Pandaria are drawing the attention, and neither are available on Steam. Still, it's a little surprising not to see RIFT ($10) or EVE Online: Inferno ($20) popping up anywhere.

Call of Duty remains a PC fixture.The sense that Call of Duty remains a fixture for PC gamers is supported by SteamGraph data. Some form of Call of Duty make up 10 whole entries of the Steam's top 100. Many of those are map packs, but the performance of Call of Duty: Black Ops - Mac Edition (#41) is interesting to me. It released yesterday, September 27, and it's outperforming stuff like Civ V: GOTY and Natural Selection 2. Modern Warfare 3 is 50% off until October 1, and it's sitting comfortably at #5.

DayZ continues to have a long tail.I don't think Arma 2: Combined Operations (what you need to play DayZ) has left the top ten of Steam's Top Sellers since it caught on in May and June. It seems to be outperforming other games that released in May and June like Sins: Rebellion (#56), Max Payne 3 (#76), Civ 5: Gods & Kings (#20), and Spec Ops: The Line (unlisted).

Reiterating: We don't know what formula or data drives Steam's Top Sellers rankings. It's probably safest to consider them a representation of what games are selling well in one moment of time on Steam.

UI- Fixed range cursor always using the player's main hero instead of the currently casting unit.- Fixed bug where connecting during CM pick stage resulted in a broken pick/ban view.- Added control groups 7, 8, 9, and 10.- Added team profile page, accessible from the profile page of any player in a team.- Filtering live games by hero now matches on localized hero names and supports keyboard shortcuts.

AUDIO- Added custom sounds when Tiny has an ultimate scepter equipped and is attacking with a tree.

BOTS- Added Luna bot.- Added Dazzle bot.- Only use suggested heroes if we have bot implementations for them.- Lich bot will now use Frost Nova when laning to harass, if he has plenty of mana.- Fixed bug that would cause Viper to use Poision Attack on creeps when laning.- Bots will now sell TP scrolls if they need the inventory space to buy an item from the Secret Shop.- Made Bane bot less likely to use abilities when doing a mild retreat.- Fixed Razor's Plasma Field usage in-lane which was just completely broken. He should spam it less now.- Tiny will now Avalanche at a slightly further distance when trying to do his combo.- Windrunner will try to Shackleshot when retreating less now, and only when Windrun isn't active.- Bots will no longer want to do Roshan when they aren't sufficiently tanky.- When buying TP scrolls, bots will now try to purchase two of them since they tend to run around without any too often- Fixed bug where bots wouldn't lower their farm desire when they reached enough money to make a big purchase, resulting in them farming forever.- Fixed bug in Armlet toggling.- Fixed bug that was causing bots to use Mekansm when no one needed healing.- Fixed bug that was causing bots to incorrectly extrapolate movement positions (breaking abilities that need to lead their targets like Torrent or Light Strike Array).

Updates to Team Fortress 2, Day of Defeat: Source and Half-Life 2: Deathmatch have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

Shared Changes (TF2, DoD:S, HL2:DM)

Improved the performance and stability of the libraries used for in-game HTML display

Updates to Team Fortress 2, Day of Defeat: Source and Half-Life 2: Deathmatch have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:Shared Changes (TF2, DoD:S, HL2:DM)

Improved the performance and stability of the libraries used for in-game HTML display

Brothers Colin and Connor McGuire wanted a Left 4 Dead movie... so they made one.

The home project took them the better part of two years, including 3000 hours of editing. The final product is about the length of an "hour" long television show, clocking in around 40 minutes, and looks at least as good as several TV shows I've seen.

I also get the impression that I would look like a Valve-inspired Transformer if I wore that, and then my brain goes on from there to invent wild action sequences where I'm flying through the air shooting lasers at Decepticons while the Autobots cheer me on as their secret weapon and savior.

The Dota 2 team have detailed of process of building the Aegis of Champions - the massive trophy and functioning shield* given out at the end of this year's International tournament - in conjunction with master propbuilders WETA.

The shield is made of bronze, leather and electroplated silver and features the Dota 2 symbol surrounded by a Radiant and Dire Yin and Yang style motif. An area on the back is reserved for the names of International champions, currently Chinese team Invictus Gaming.

WETA are also taking preorders for a range of premium Dota 2 props. Vanguard and the Demon Edge Sword are a whopping $299 each, and you can pick up a Butterfly or a statue of Axe for only $249 a piece.

It's notable (ish) that Butterfly is the cheapest real-life weapon, as it costs a hefty 6000 gold in the game itself. Vanguard is only 2225, for heaven's sake - and who doesn't already have a stout shield and a ring of health lying around? Demon Edge will cost you 2400 gold all in one go, but really it's just a stepping stone on the way to a Daedalus.

Basically, I'm saying that if you're in the market for a massive urethane sword, then Butterfly is the best value proposition. Also, that 35% evasion chance could come in handy when crossing the road.**

* I am perfectly happy to take Gabe Newell at his word in this regard.** Please under no circumstances attempt this.

Gorgeous Greenlight projects. A planned Left 4 Dead 2 map on meta-horror. Dildo bats, crazy cats, and space hats. What does it all mean? It probably all makes sense on a metaphysical level, but we're pretty sure they're just more news we're rounding up and sending your way like a caring grandmother. A caring zombie grandmother.

The Light brands itself as "an interactive philosophical story." Sweet, sweet urban decay. Cabin in the Woods director Drew Goddard almost worked with Valve on a potential Left 4 Dead 2 map pack tie-in. The Secret World gets a new director, former lead content designer Joel Bylos, and reveals the name of its next Issue update as "The Cat God." Let's hope Bylos didn't have to endure through an elaborate initiation ceremony involving complicated hand gestures. The entirety of Saints Row: The Third's DLC is included in the upcoming Full Package version releasing on November 9 for $50. Super-long Assassin's Creed 3 gameplay video reveals Connor actually talking. Oh, and chopping people's faces in.

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Wow. Like any sport, the scores of grizzled and battle-trained gaming teams competing in tournaments and championships offer chances to observe spectacular upset victories and displays of superhuman prowess. Here's a tip: If you ever see a player named "Noppo" during your Counter-Strike 1.6 sessions, flee. Confused? Check out this video of the deciding match for the Asia eSports Cup featuring Noppo's team myRevenge and a hilarious disregard for vision-obscuring walls. More details inside.

After losing two team members early on in the classic de_nuke map, Noppo hunkered down beside one of the bomb sites and pulled off a spectacular five-kill ace sealing the win for myRevenge. This is the crazy part: three of those kills were through walls. See, Noppo capitalized on Counter-Strike's "wallbang" feature: bullet penetration through certain surfaces. An edited X-ray video -- complete with appropriately freaking out Japanese casters -- reveals Noppo's unreal accuracy in finer detail.